Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

304 SCENE OF THE MASSACRE NEAR RAMAS.
ter had been given to the drivers, —the bodies of more than
fifty of whom still lay festering there; naked, bloated and
blackened by sun and fire. Some of them, after being
smeared with tar, had been burnt to a crisp upon the wagons.
Others, frightfully mangled with wounds, had been placed in
an erect position with pieces of their own flesh thrust into
their months. The hearts of some had been torn from their
breasts, and suspended upon the bushes or left to roast upon
the rocks, reminding us of the revolting sacrifices of the
Aztecs to the Sun. Indeed such barbarous atrocities could
only have been perpetrated by the progeny of those cannibals
and the cruel torturers of Gautemozin.i The effluvia arising. It has been supposed by many persons that these barbarities were committed
by the semi-savage rancheros of Canales alone. In the Mexican " Notes of the
War," —a work to which I have often heretofore referred,-a chapter is devoted to
the guerrilla operations both on the lines of Scott and Taylor; from which I quote
the subjoined extract to show that officers of' rank and troops of the line were
present at, if not actual participators in this merciless butchery. Let it be remenmbered that the enemy commenced this sort of' warfare. Their historian does not
deny it; but after remarking that,-" this kind of hostilities the Americans called
barbarous,"-he hastens lamely to justify them by adding,-" but they soon established the same on their side." General Urrea was undoubtedly the commanderin-chief of all the Mexican troops north of the Sierra Madre at the time. He, I
believe, is generally known as the executioner of Fanning's Texans. The
Iturbide mentioned in the following extract is a son of the ill-star'd Emperor oi
that name, and is also well known in the cities of the United States. It is believed
that the name of Lambert is a misprint, and should be " Langberg;" at least it is
so written by that officer himself in a certain considerate and modest billet now in
my possession. He is probably a German, and takes pains to announce himself
" a foreign officer," in the note which will be given to the reader on a subsequent
page of these Memoirs. After describing the guerrillas on the Vera Cruz line,
under the famous Padre Jaurauta and Robolledo, the Mexican historian writes as
follows:" The guerillas of Tamaulipas were recruited from the rancheros of the villas
and were comnmanded by Canales; along with the squadrons of Guanajuato, of
Allende and Fieles de Guanajuato, commanded by Generals Urrea and Romaro.
They had under them likewise, several officers of the army of the line, such as
Emelio Lambert, Augustin Ricoy, Augustin Iturbide, Pantaleon Gutierrez, and